The first tingly, muscle-ache sensations of Covid were felt Friday morning. I went through it a year ago so I know the deal. Yesterday I took a Covid test…bingo.

It took me four days to get through it last December so I’ll probably be out of the woods by Monday evening.

Right now I feel so depleted that the mere thought of sitting up and writing something is exhausting.

12:25 am, Monday: I can feel the Covid starting to weaken, dissipate. The worst seems to be over.

9 am, Monday: Digital temperature gauge reads 98.4.

This morning’s recovery made think of Keith’s “98.6.” I shouldn’t need to remind, of course, that it’s no longer acceptable to address or refer to a girlfriend as “baby.”

Ladies and germs, the winner of the NYFCC’s Best Director award….

I was ready to move past the Jeanne Dielmann / Sight & Sound thing, but then I came upon a Todd Alcott Facebook riff that completely ignored the fact that the voting was largely political and that the system was almost certainly massaged and gamed.

This notion was aroused when Jordan Ruimy posted a link to Brian Jacobson’s L.A. Review of Books piece about the S&S poll (12.2), which had a vague “smoking gun” feeling.

First Alcott, then me and then Alcott’s progressive female Facebook pallies, who seem to think that I hate Chantal Ackerman’s 1975 film (I’m not that much of a fan but I don’t hate it) or that I don’t get it because of my gender (I understand exactly what it’s about and what the strategy is).

I’ve been working on launching a special industry-friendly film series at the renowned Bedford Playhouse, which is run by Dan Friedman. The program is called Bedford Marquee, and a 12.5 screening of Damien Chazelle’s Babylon will kick things off.

I’ll be offering a few observations (including some historical footnotes) a few minutes before the show begins at 7 pm.

Located within the Clive Davis Arts Center, the BP is one of the finest commercial screening facilities I’ve ever settled into — easily the technical equal of any upscale industry screening facility (including the Academy Museum theatre and/or the classic AMPAS theatre in Beverly Hills) in the U.S., Paris, Cannes or anywhere.

Esteemed restoration guru Robert Harris supervised the BP’s upgrade.

We’re also planning a special mid-January screening of the recently restored Invaders From Mars (‘53). The film was painstakingly restored by Scott MacQueen, who will present a master class about the film’s history and cultural influence.

A sprawling three-hour epic of 1920s Hollywood, Babylon opens nationwide on 12.23.

“The ‘Oscar Movie’ Is Dying,” an 11.28 lament by World of Reel’s Jordan Ruimy, was linked to yesterday (11.29) by Real Clear Politics — congrats.

Owen Gleiberman’s 11.29 review of the apparently loathsome Violent Night (Universal, 12.2) acknowledges the same dynamic — on top of 2022 award-season films exuding a curious “meh” lethargy, Joe and Jane Popcorn (especially the 40-plus crowd) have mostly shined the notion of seeing these films in theatres:

One key reason is that there’s zero overlap between elite industry sensibilities and the generally coarse, cynical and fed-up attitudes of popcorn inhalers.

The introduction to that brilliant 11.28 video essay on the Oscars’ 94 year history reminds that over the last decade award-season films have become their own separate and myopic genre — and with the pernicious SJW factor the vast majority has simply tuned them out.

The decisive gutshot bullet that killed the award-season brand (I’ve said this over and over) was fired on 4.25.21 by Steven Soderbergh, producer of the 93rd Academy Award telecast.

From “Norma Desmond: It’s The Oscars That Got Small,” posted on 9.30.21:

I knew gas prices were going down, but not to this degree.

The 2.24.23 release of Cocaine Bear (Universal), a heartless, cruel-minded thriller if there ever was one (or so it would seem), is fast approaching.

Posted on 8.1.22: In November 1985, a dead black bear was discovered in Chattahoochee National Forest. Nearby was a torn-open duffel bag that had apparently contained 75 pounds of Bolivian marching powder, and which had apparently fallen out of a smuggler’s plane. (Flown by Tom Cruise’s Barry Seal?) The clueless bear had eaten a good portion of the coke and overdosed.

The guy who found the bear’s ruined body didn’t alert authorities (one guess why) and it wasn’t until 12.20.85 when authorities discovered the carcass. A medical examiner at the Georgia State Crime Lab said that that the bear’s stomach was “literally packed to the brim with cocaine.”

Elizabeth Banks has directed a “character-driven thriller” about the poor bear’s misfortune as well as, one presumes, certain humans who quickly developed an interest in the free cocaine. It’s called Cocaine Bear (Universal, 2.24.23). The film costars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Jesse Tyler Ferguson and the late Ray Liotta.

The title alone suggests that Banks and her producers see the story as an opportunity for bear thrills, or at least partly that.

The body of this poor, poisoned animal eventually found its way to a taxidermist, and is now on display inside the Kentucky for Kentucky Fun Mall (720 Bryan Ave., Lexington, Kentucky). There’s a sign around the bear’s neck that refers to him as “Pablo Escobear.”

In short Kentucky bumblefucks regard the idea of a furry beast dying of a cocaine overdose as a hoot.

HE to Banks and Universal marketing: HE believes that the death of an innocent animal who died of cocaine ingestion is not in itself an opportunity to do “funny” or “thrilling”. It sounds to me like a metaphorical tale about our casual greed and cruelty and indifference to the natural order of things — about the fact that forest animals have a certain nobility while we have none.

What does it mean when a plurality of mainstream media types decide that a certain critically lauded, high-profile biopic by a major-brand, boomer-aged filmmaker…a film that Average Joes & Janes are not exactly rushing out to see (the reception so far has been West Side Story-ish)…what does it mean when a film that, by the measure of Howard Hawks, has three good scenes (Judd Hirsch rant, Nazi war film shoot in the Arizona desert, John Ford barks out lesson about horizon lines) and several meh ones…a “good” but subdued Amarcord film that unfolds in a reasonably compelling fashion but isn’t, on its own story terms and minus the Spielberg coat of arms, what anyone would call a fascinating tale…

What does it mean when the go-along media bros decide nonetheless that this is the safest, most reliable, most steady-as-she-goes Oscar pony to get behind?

I’ll tell you what it means. It means that elite brand fortification matters to a lot of people. Speaking as one who’s been proud to self–identify as an honorary Jew since the ‘70s, I understand it all.

The plan is for Jett and Cait to bring one-year-old Sutton into Manhattan this Saturday (i.e., five days hence) with a special interest in showing her the big Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.

In the same sense that kids can’t really appreciate the unique cultural pleasures of Europe until they’re ten or so, tykes probably can’t really “get” the midtown holiday splendor thing until they’re two or three. Plus I’m not looking forward to mingling with suffocating masses of bridge-and-tunnel tourists.

That isn’t stopping us, of course. Sutton might be taken aback at the size of that 80-foot-tall tree or the ornamental lights and whatnot, and the mere possibility of such an impression is enough.

I was three during my first visit to Manhattan. The tree aside, the focus back then was eyeballing the window displays at Sak’s Fifth Avenue and visiting Santa Claus at Macy’s.

The first Rockefeller Center Xmas tree was erected in 1931. It was only 20something feet tall and was paid for, notably, by construction guys who were building 30 Rock.